When Andy Stepanian and Dara Lovitz gave a talk on SHAC7 and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) at NYU Law School on Tuesday, most of the audience came half-expecting to hear a legal seminar (Lovitz is the author of Muzzling a Movement). Almost no one expected to laugh or cry with inspiration before the talk ended, although almost everyone did. (We interviewed Andy before this event.)

This was not a speech or a classroom teaching. Dara spoke so candidly about the absurdities of animal enterprise terrorism laws that even the law students had to start laughing with her. Andy spoke so painfully earnestly to everyone that few had dry eyes by the end of the talk. No one walked away depressed, though, as the duo were determined to show everyone exactly how much potential we all have to effect positive change, despite how much money and effort the animal enterprises dump into making us feel powerless and small.

Dara, the lawyer, spoke first. And the takeaway of her talk wasn’t “the history and overview of AETA,” but rather just how impressively unconstitutional the AETA is, and how it managed to be drafted anyway. She explained very frankly how a series of unconscionably illegal laws culminating in AETA were pulled over everyone’s eyes through passionately written passages. Passages about how animal activists victimize dying people who can only get a cure through animal testing. Passages that literally say that we owe so much of our lives to the selfless people in charge of the factory farm industry. And she put us face to face with how so many of our senators and policymakers are CEO’s and beneficiaries of devastating animal enterprises.Continue Reading…

Muggsy is a 10-year-old pit bull who’s never had a permanent home. She spent the last nine years in an office on Long Island, but the company is moving to a new location where Muggsy can’t follow. The company owner is going to put her down if no one takes her in, said Paula Monzolino, a letter carrier on LI who hears Muggsy cry when she delivers mail to the old building. FUCK, THIS IS SAD. I CAN HARDLY GO ON. For the love of puppy, please e-mail Paula if you can take Muggsy in. Paula’s tried LI shelters, but they’re all overwhelmed with dogs and cats.

New York State Humane Lobby Day is upon us, March 24, people. This is our chance to talk about legislation that will directly and significantly affect the nonhumans with whom we share the state. Want to go but don’t have a ride? Chartered buses will leave from Water Street and Midtown West the morning of. $25 pp.

Discerning Brute founder Joshua Katcher will give a vegan cooking demo TOMORROW, hear me?, at JivamukTea Cafe 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The event costs $75, and you can sign up here by going to the special events tab on the upper right and clicking “signup now!” next to Joshua’s photo. (Pssst, you can check our NYC events calendar for more vegan happenings in the area, too!)

TeaNY is reopening, say some news-rumors. Alas, the LES restaurant, which has been closed since it lost to an electrical fire in June ’09, isn’t answering the phones or opening the doors, so I have no real live dates for you at present. TeaNY, answer my calls, open up, and bring back your sweet, sweet, frothy almond milk tea lattes. I still love you.

‘sNice is opening a new location at Sullivan Street between Prince and Houston, sooort of near TeaNY. Some time this month they will fill the sandwich and tea chasm below Houston. So, TeaNY, whatever with you. Oh, consumers are so fickle. (Just kidding. More is more. Give me my lattes.)

State Senate majority leader Dean Florez introduced a bill today that would require California animal abusers to list themselves in a registry, as is currently done with sex offenders and arsonists. Yay, public shaming of horrible, deliberately perpetrated atrocities!

According to the Animal League Defense Fund, who is supporting the registry effort with its new campaign, www.ExposeAnimalAbusers.org, the bill would include “violence (torture, mutilation, intentional killings, etc.), sexual abuse, and animal fighting as well as neglect (such as hoarding).”

“We operate shelters in the hopes of giving abandoned pets a second chance at a loving home, not subjecting them to lives of continued abuse and neglect,” Florez, a Democrat and chairman of the Food and Agriculture Committee, said in a press conference this morning. “A registry of abusers would help ensure animals are not being adopted out to convicted abusers, end the cycle of abuse and increase the likelihood of finding these pets the forever home they deserve.”

Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir is going to don fake fur rather than real fur over his manitard because some muddling vegans tried to take the focus off his triple axel for a second to talk about his anally-electrocuted outfit, and he just CANNOT BE DISTRACTED FROM WHAT’S IMPORTANT. Weir gets what’s wrong with fur, he told the AP, “but it’s not something that’s the number-one priority in my life. There are humans dying every day. … Look at what just happened in Haiti.” LOOK OVER THERE! LOOK OVER THERE!

How about this: a slice of your debit transaction fees could support animals instead of banks. In Defense of Animals launched a debit card that will direct a portion of transaction fees to IDA, which they will use to fund “our chimpanzee sanctuary in Cameroon, Africa; our veterinary clinics and ambulance service for the thousands of street animals of Mumbai, India; and for our investigative and sanctuary work in rural Mississippi,” IDA founder and President Elliot M. Katz said. For use wherever Mastercard is accepted. No details yet on how to get one, but I’ll update if I find out.

Food Fight! Vegan Grocery needs our $$ to help cover their taxes. They’re offering a 5-percent discount with code “FUTAXES10” (heh) good through Monday, 2/15. Time to stock up on chocolates and Ricemellow, MMMMHMMM.

New iPhone app from the vegan boozemeisters at Barnivore. Search for “vegan is easy” in the iTunes store. Update (2/15): Per Jason Doucette’s comment below, the app was not made by Barnivore, but it uses data from Barnivore.

Well, there you have it — the week that was. Did we miss anything? Let us know!